Non-Final Rejection
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-16 are allowed
Claims 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a)
Response to Amendment
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 17 describes comparing root two root causes and determining that they are similar in order to implement a logset gather. Contrarily, Applicant’s specification describes the invention as implementing an investigation in order to find the root cause (Paragraphs 0054-0055). Additionally, Claim 17 describes the root cause of the first issue being a part of a notification, whereas Paragraph 0101 does not include the cause in the content, as the cause is found later as previously described. Claims 18-20 are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) due to their dependence upon Claim 17.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-16 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
Although references cited teach parts of the method of the claimed invention, the combination of all of the parts of the method being executed together was not found. The parts of the method cannot be obviously combined, and thus the limitations in combination render the independent claims as allowable, and the dependents follow due to also being a part of that specific combination. Specifically, while conditional data collection and cosine similarity are known, as shown by art cited in this rejection and previously, the combination of the specific data types, the method of measuring similarity, and the method of data collecting and storing, cannot be reasonably combined due to a lack of motivation. Claims 1 and 10 are allowed due to reciting this combination, and Claims 2-9 and 11-16 are also allowed due to their respective dependency.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on June 19th, 2026, have been fully considered but they are not fully persuasive.
Arguments regarding the amendments of Claims 17-20 overcoming the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) are not convincing. Claim 17 still recites collecting further data because of the similarity of two causes, whereas the specification describes collecting further data in order to find the cause (please see above for further details). Appropriate correction is required.
The rejections of Claims 6-9 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) have been withdrawn due to the amendment.
Arguments regarding the newly amended features not being taught by the prior art are convincing. Please see the above reasonings for further detail.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Fan (CN 118626326 A): teaches expanding the data collection of an issue to better analyze the root cause of the issue
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/G.K.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2113 /BRYCE P BONZO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2113
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